At the crossroads – Writing Studio prompts and recording

Several events in the sky flavored our studio session today. The Moon is just between half and full, with the final Eclipse of the summer taking place this Saturday night. Last night, giant planet Jupiter met up with tiny but powerful planet Pluto for the second of three times this year. This action blends Underworld power with expansion and growth, although we may not see the results until after the final meeting in November, just around the time of the election!

Last, the quickest planet of all, Mercury, crosses the path of the Sun tonight in it’s retrograde journey, perhaps offering some much-needed clarity on issues of family and ‘tribe’. We talked about Mercurial themes of magic and language, among other things.

I brought in my favorite definition of karma as a backdrop for our discussion on the power of language: the purpose of karma is to teach the consequences of our belief system. Our beliefs become our thoughts; our thoughts become our words; our words become our actions, and our actions determine our fate (karma). This reminds me of a quote from Carl Jung: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Our prompts for the short writing session were these:

• What is the most magical thing anyone has said to you or you have said to another?

Our longer writing period began with these prompts:

• “Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become fate” – what does this description of the power of karma bring up for you?
• “I stood at the crossroads, determining which path I would follow”.

The quote I used today is from the book “Flash of the Spirit” by Robert Farris Thompson, as quoted by Caroline Casey in her book “Making the Gods Work for You”:Working with Mercury means that one must cultivate the art of recognizing significant communications, knowing what is truth and what is falsehood, or else the lessons of the crossroads – the point where doors open or close, where persons have to make decisions that may forever affect  their lives – will be lost.

Here is the video recording link for today’s Salon session: https://vimeo.com/434170420

We start a new month of the Studio next week.  Learn more and register here: https://kristinebackes.com/weekly-astro-writing-salon/